Question about using older manual Lenses on my 5D

I have been doing a little research but am having a hard time figuring out the combination of adapters and or lenses that I need. So I am hoping that someone can help me wrap my head around this. From what I have been reading, I will need an M42 adaptor for most lenses but I never get a straight answer to what I am looking for. Lets say I purchase an older canon 50mm 1.4 like the one in the first link, will I need an M42 adapter to make it work? And does the adapter need to have the metal contacts?

http://www.ebay.com …enses&hash=item​5aee833604

And then would this mamiya lens need the same adapter or a different one?

http://www.ebay.com …enses&hash=item​4171ad14b1

I guess I am just having a hard time knowing which lenses will need what adapters and If the lens will hit the mirror at infinity, so anyone who can give me any advice would be greatly appreciated!

for the FD lens, you can use a glass-less adapter but can't focus to infinity, or use a glass element adapter that degrades image quality and extends the focal length

for the mamiya, you need a m42 to eos adapter.

some adapter has focus confirmation chip and some don't. the ones with chip cost more, and when you half shutter the camera, the focus confirmation will work when you're in focus.

as a general rule, if you buy a lens made for another type of camera mount, you'll need a specific type of adapter for that mount. nikon lens needs nikon to eos adapter, olympus lens needs olympus to eos adapter, etc etc

rambotk3 wrote in post #15726513
I have been doing a little research but am having a hard time figuring out the combination of adapters and or lenses that I need. So I am hoping that someone can help me wrap my head around this. From what I have been reading, I will need an M42 adaptor for most lenses but I never get a straight answer to what I am looking for. Lets say I purchase an older canon 50mm 1.4 like the one in the first link, will I need an M42 adapter to make it work? And does the adapter need to have the metal contacts?

http://www.ebay.com …enses&hash=item​5aee833604

And then would this mamiya lens need the same adapter or a different one?

http://www.ebay.com …enses&hash=item​4171ad14b1

I guess I am just having a hard time knowing which lenses will need what adapters and If the lens will hit the mirror at infinity, so anyone who can give me any advice would be greatly appreciated!

I have used manual focus lenses in various forms, in depth.

If you have an autofocus camera, man save yourself the HUGE headache and just get an autofocus lens.

I shot with a minolta rokkor-x 50mm/1.2 modified by Jim Buchanan himself, and it was glorious, but once I got a 50L, I said to myself: man that was 400 bucks I could have spent towards the 50L...months SOONER.


anything marked canon FD, just steer clear of, its way more headache than you ever want. seriously, look away!


BUT, if you are in fact as stubborn as I am(damn son), You'll want a split prism focusing screen- the EG-S is not as precise, while it does show the narrower depth of field of faster lenses, it does not give you absolute focus confirmation.

if you're looking for an M42 50mm lens...literally put that into the ebay search, and you'll be inundated with lenses...

FD isn't a good option, because you'll either need an adapter with glass elements in it, or one that won't allow infinity focus...

the mamiya doesn't look like a straight m42 lens, like suggested above...i think you'd have to do some sort of work to make it work on your camera

but seriously...to make things a million times easier...look for one here:
http://www.ebay.com …l?_from=R40&_nk​w=m42+50mm

rambotk3 wrote in post #15726513
From what I have been reading, I will need an M42 adaptor for most lenses but I never get a straight answer to what I am looking for.

Most 35mm format lenses from the 1970s onwards were bayonet mount. The screw mount stuff is cheap because it's either old or communist-made.

Not on your camera if you get the Ee-S screen, because the viewfinder and screen are good enough to manually focus with (at least IME up to f/2). If it weren't so good, you'd have to rely on the AF confirm dot. As it is, you probably *don't* want that unless you normally use back button AF. I never used a chipped adaptor and believe I avoided problems that could have occurred with them.

I never had any trouble with my Olympus OM lenses on the 5D. OTOH, I've seen many reports of the mirror hitting Contax/Yashica mount Zeiss lenses. If you intend to use such lenses, and you haven't bought the 5D yet, consider looking for one which has had "the mirror shaved" - given how cheap the 5D is now, the seller might be having trouble unloading such a body.

Thanks for all the advice! And I would love a 50L, but I am really doing it for fun and wanting the old school feel as you might call it, I planned on getting the split prism focusing screen as well. I have had the 50 1.8, and the 50 1.4 which the autofocus went out on me lol

Okay so just to try and clear this up what is the difference between a lens being FD and the Mount being M42? So as long as I find a lens that is M42? Like in the first link how do it know what mount that is even though it is a canon lens?

And I do already have the 5D!

M42 means 42mm screw mount of a certain pitch (something prewar German, I forget). FD is bayonet or a variation of that called breech.

"Bayonet" means it just clips on like a bayonet onto a WW1 Winchester 303 rifle: press in and turn.

In your first link, you don't see a screw thread 42mm in diameter, therefore it is not 42mm screw mount.

EDIT - I think the problem might be you don't understand what "mount" means. EF is the native mount for Canon EOS; OM is the mount for the Olympus OM series SLRs; F is the Nikon mount; FD is the mount for manual focus Canon film cameras that preceded the EOS system; MD is the old Minolta mount.

http://www.panoramapla​net.de/comp/

Compatibility chart for 5D.
297 lenses or so.

Stick to Contax/Yashica (C/Y) mount manual lenses. Zeiss and Yashica ML/MLc/MC lenses are some of the best in the world. A decent C/Y-EOS adapter is less that $20 on Amazon.com. You won't be disappointed. Vivitar and Tokina also made some very good glass in C/Y.

Awesome I will definitely look into those! Thanks for all the help guys, really do appreciate it!

I love manual focus lenses - even on AF cameras (I think there are not many 24x36mm DSLR cameras without AF, the Leica R9 with digital back, any more?).

One of my 5D is without AF, I have disabled it premanently, in favour to get a brighter viewfinder. AF taken away 2/3 of an f-stop.
I like the EE-S screens, my tests with a spilt image screen and fast lenses are bad. But screens need to be adjusted to be used with the very fast lenses.

I am very happy with my home modified Minolta Rokkor 58mm f/1.2. The Canon FD 50mm f/1.2L would be better - in technical terms - but I think I would not be as happy as with this legendary 58mm Rokkor.

The Contax Zeiss lenses are great, but some needs modifications on the lens and / or the camera mirror. For example my Zeiss 18mm/4 has to much protrusion. On the 25mm f/2.8 I need a very exact adapter to maintain infinity, and have no mirror crush.

Canon FD lenses are good performers - but need a kind of lens mount conversion. I have done several of these (20,24,85,100,300,400,​500,800), and publicated some first instructions how to perform these conversions reversible, and how to perform the iris linkeage to the iris ring. FD modifications without prebuild parts is pretty much work.

There are many interessting M42 lenses out there, I love my Helios 44 58mm/2.0 lenses - they are cheap enough for some experiments Most M42 lenses work well with an easy adapter on EOS 5D, some few protrude to much.
My most loved lens is the German Meyer Goerlitz Trioplan 100, with its very special bokeh rendering:
https://photography-on-the.net …/showthread.php​?t=1282872

Some Nikon F-mount lenses are interessting as well, and easy usable with adapters.

There are many hunderts of lens types around you can use with you EOS 5D! Some very easy, some needs much effort, some cheap for few USD, some cost a fortune.
I think I have ~200 lenses that work (proably with modification) on the EOS 5D - and there are still many many others around

Take a look at this website as it has lots of good info on how to use older manual focus lenses on Canon EOS bodies: http://www.bobatkins.c​om …faq/manual_focu​s_EOS.html